The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation offered questions and comments over proposed amendments to the massive Northwest Forest Plan.
Originally adopted in 1994, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) proposed an amended update in 2024, including landscape-scale management direction and guidance for 17 national forests in Washington, Oregon and northern California covering 24 million acres, that includes range for Rocky Mountain, Roosevelt and tule elk.
“The proposed amendment is predicated on the assumption that old-growth forests are underrepresented on the landscape and face an existential threat unique to their successional stage. RMEF requests the USFS provide significant detail about how it determined that old growth is underrepresented within the National Forest System and specify the old-growth volume ideal for maintaining forest health,” wrote Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Director of Wildlife and Habitat Karie Decker, as part of RMEF’s submitted public comments.
In 2024, USFS released a threat analysis about mature and old-growth forests concluding wildfire, insects and disease are not only best mitigated through active forest management but are the greatest hazard to old growth, affirming RMEF’s long-held philosophy that a hands-off approach is detrimental for overall forest health. RMEF’s comments correspond with previous feedback about the recent USFS attempt to amend all forest plans to protect old growth – an attempt that ultimately failed.
The USFS’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy pledges to drastically increase the pace and scale of forest management to mitigate wildfire risk across the National Forest System.
“That the USFS would simultaneously call for management restrictions in old growth to accomplish the same objective of mitigating wildfire risk is inconsistent,” wrote Decker. “Old-growth forests, by definition, will face a higher mortality rate over time. A paradigm that prioritizes the expansion of old growth without respect to other ecological considerations, if carried out to fruition, would lead to dying forests with an even higher risk of wildfire and insect/disease and decreased biodiversity.”
Additional RMEF concerns and suggestions:
- Young forests are more effective at sequestering carbon than old-growth forests, which are approaching a state of dormancy and decay
- Old growth is not synonymous with biodiversity and has significant implications for wildlife
- Mosaic patterns within forests (a mixture of young and older growth) lead to a better ecological status including the resiliency of old-growth stands
- Frequent fire, forest thinning and selective logging create vegetation diversity and improve wildlife habitat
“RMEF supports a landscape-scale approach to increase the pace and scale of fuel reduction across the Northwest Planning Area. Executing active forest management techniques such as prescribed burns, thinning, and other treatments helps prevent severe wildfires, assists in long-term ecosystem resilience and provides important forage resources for wildlife. In addition, managing natural ignitions can help achieve fuel and vegetation goals,” wrote Decker.
As longtime partners, RMEF and the USFS entered 2025 having collaboratively completed 3,790 conservation and hunting heritage outreach projects across the country with a combined value of more than $408 million. These projects conserved or enhanced more than 3.9 million acres of habitat and opened or improved public access to more than 366,680 acres.
(Photo credit: National Forest Service)